


Royalty

by Weevilo707



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angus is a runaway prince, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-04 15:29:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14596059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weevilo707/pseuds/Weevilo707
Summary: Angus McDonald was very excited when he was invited to come along on the reclaimer's vacation. Or at least, he was until he found out where they were going. Then he couldn't help but think of all the ways this was definitely going to go wrong.How hard would it be to stay unnoticed in a huge city for just one week? Being the lost prince of that particular country might make things a little bit more difficult, but surely he'd be able to handle it.





	Royalty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Emily_the_Almighty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emily_the_Almighty/gifts).



Angus knocked on the reclaimer’s door, rocking back and forth as he waited for it to open. There were a few moments where nothing happened and he frowned. He could  _ hear _ someone moving around in there. He knew they weren’t at training, it was easier to know when they weren’t than the other way around nowadays. Giving it a few moments, Angus knocked again. 

This time it opened and he saw a mage hand fly back, grabbing a cloak off the rack on its way. Shrugging, he followed the hand back to Taako’s room. The elf knew he was coming over today.

“Hello sir, I’m here for a magic lesson,” he said as he walked into the room. It was messier than Angus was used to, which was saying something. Clothes were tossed about more than usual, and it looked like Taako had upended most of his drawers and closet. There was a suitcase laid out on the bed, although there wasn’t much in it from what he could see.

“Sir, are you running away?” Angus asked, looking at Taako. He was standing in the center of the room, scowling at several cloaks that floated around him. The elf didn’t seem to notice him for a moment before looking up with a frown.

“Huh? No bubula, have you never seen someone packing for vacation before?” Taako said, and that was a relief. He would be a little upset if Taako had decided to run away.

“Oh! I didn’t know you were going on vacation,” he said, moving some of the clothes on the bed to the side so he could sit down.

“Yeah, shit was just dropped on us. I think the director feels bad about working us to the goddamn bone, which she should. So she’s giving us a week getaway, and you know cha’ boy’s gonna make the most of it,” Taako said, finally deciding on a cloak.

“You all have been training really hard,” Angus agreed. He knew the Director must have a good reason for it though. He didn’t know much about what the next relic would hold for them, but he knew it would be bad. “Um, speaking of training, you’ve been so busy we haven’t had the chance to have many magic lessons. I understand if you need to prepare for your vacation though,” he added. He’d been looking forward to getting a chance to learn more magic. Sure, he’d started picking up things on his own now that Taako had shown him the basics, but there was something about having someone there explaining it to you that made it sink in better.

“Oh right, we did have lessons planned for today, didn’t we?” Taako said, and Angus wasn’t surprised that he’d forgotten with this new thing dropped on him. “The director kinda gave us short notice on this. We’re actually leaving tomorrow and that’s barely any time to plan for a whole week at  _ all,” _ he said, and Angus nodded.

“I understand sir, we can train when you get back,” he said.

“What level spells are you at now?” Taako asked, throwing a few pairs of shoes into his suitcase. When he glanced into it though, it didn’t look like Taako added anything. He didn’t need to be the world’s greatest detective to realize that it was enchanted.

“You’ve taught me a few level two spells,” Angus said, and Taako nodded. He looked like he was thinking something over, but Angus wasn’t sure what.

“I guess that’s pretty good. Still, you’re right about not having enough time for me to school you in all kinds of wizard shit lately,” Taako said before sighing heavily. “Well, doesn’t seem like there’s much of a choice. Go pack up your shit, you’ll be blasting out fireballs by the end of the week.”

“What do you mean sir?” Angus asked. He had a pretty good idea but he didn’t want to assume.

“I  _ mean _ I’m not giving up any of my hard earned vacation time to tutor you, so you’ll have to come along,” Taako said. It was clear he was trying to sound as put upon as possible about this, but Angus knew he wouldn’t suggest it if he really didn’t want him around.

“Really? Thank you so much sir! I’ll go get ready right away,” Angus said, moving to run out of the room. He stopped himself after a moment and turned back. “Oh, where are we going? Back to Bottlenose Cove again?” he asked. He needed an idea of what to pack, and he just saw Taako throw a pair of furry boots followed by shimmery sandals into his bag, so he couldn’t go off of that.

“Nah, like I said I think the Director’s feeling guilty as fuck, cause she’s sending us international baby. Some country called Altidon? Ahtridon?” Taako said, fumbling over the name.

“Ahtradon,” Angus corrected, trying not to show how his blood ran cold. Taako didn’t seem to notice, nodding and throwing a pack of chocolates in his bag.

“That’s the one. I don’t know shit about it, never been outside of faerun, so I’m just covering all my basics,” he said, which explained why he had both a large coat and a bathing suit ready to go into the bag.

“It’s warm there this time of year. You won’t need the coat,” Angus said. Taako nodded and put the coat back in the closet, not questioning how he knew that. Please, don’t let Taako question any of this.

“You know sir, I was thinking and maybe I shouldn’t go. You should relax on your vacation and I um, I have a lot of work to do here, as a seeker and all,” Angus tried. Thankfully Taako didn’t look suspicious at him, but he waved him off.

“Please, if you think I’m letting you stop me from relaxing for a second during this you’ve got another thing coming. Besides, you’re like eight, I’m pretty sure they gotta give you as much vacation time as you ask for,” he said.

“But what if Merle or Magnus wanted to bring someone along instead?” he tried.

“Then they shoulda called dibs. Now go pack before I throw you in with the rest of my shit instead. I’m only 80% sure there’s actually air in here,” Taako said. Angus could tell he was bluffing, but he wasn’t sure if it was about putting him in the bag or the 20% chance of there not being any air in there. He wasn’t interested in finding out.

So, he did as Taako said and went back to his room to start packing. The entire time he was trying not to panic.

They were going back to Ahtradon. It wasn’t a big deal. It was a large country, and he didn’t even know what part they were going to. Maybe they’d stay out in the country side, from what little he’d seen of it while he was leaving it seemed nice and relaxing out there.

Plus, he’d grown a lot since he left. It’d been two years, maybe no one would recognize him. Maybe they weren’t even looking for him anymore.

Getting out of the country had been hard, as soon as he’d gone missing there had been search parties everywhere. He was able to keep track of them to stay out of their way, but he didn’t know what was going on there anymore. It’d been so long since he’d been back, and he’d been avoiding the subject.

But it had been years now, surely they couldn’t still be looking.

Yeah, they’d probably moved on by now. No one would notice him, and this would be a fun, exciting vacation. It might even be nice to see what his home was like after being gone for so long.

As long as no one saw him for anything other than Angus McDonald, the world’s greatest detective, it would be fine.

The next day as they shot through the air and towards the Capital of Ahtradon, Angus was certain that things were not going to be fine.

Of course they were going to be staying right in the capital. Angus had even been able to see the castle clear as day as they landed. It looked just like he remembered it, although he’d never seen it from above before. The only upside at the moment was that the reclaimers were all too busy being excited about their time off to notice what a nervous wreck he was.

“Alright, Lucretia said we’re already set up with a hotel, it shouldn’t be far,” Magnus said as they got out of the bubble. Angus followed along after them, keeping his head low and trying not to look suspicious. Would they question him if he used disguise self for the whole trip? What was he thinking, of course they would, that would be such a weird thing to do.

A hand grabbed him by the shoulder, and Angus yelped and pulled away. When he looked back, Taako had a suspicious frown on his face. Shit.

“You almost fucked off right into the street there Agnes,” he said, and Angus hadn’t even realized how close to the curb he was.

“You alright there Ango? You look kinda spooked,” Magnus asked, and Angus quickly nodded.

“I’m fine! I was just really excited to be here and I guess I wasn’t paying attention,” he lied. He could see the three give each other a glance before either nodding or shrugging it off.

“Well pay more attention, I probably won’t notice next time,” Taako said. They continued to the hotel after that, and Angus made sure to keep an eye on where he was actually going. The hotel they had been set up at was a fancy one. Angus had never stayed there, he never had to, but he remembered a few guests would sometimes.

He hadn’t though, and the lady who checked them in didn’t seem to recognize him, so it was probably safe. At least for now.

The first day had ended up going alright despite Angus’s nerves. They had free range to do whatever they wanted for this trip. There was a lot to do in the capital too, a lot he’d never gotten a chance to and wouldn’t mind checking out. It was kind of hard to suggest some of the more obscure things without revealing himself though.

He could tell the reclaimers were at least a little suspicious of his behavior too. So he mainly put input on the things the others had heard of, and most of that was ignored anyway. Which wasn’t surprising. They seemed almost incapable of making a single unanimous decision on what they wanted to do just between the three of them.

Still, the first day they’d gone out to eat, and Angus was worried that they were going to go somewhere super high end. To his surprise though Taako had been more interested in trying out authentic, cheaper places. Magnus said he didn’t want to ‘go anywhere that gives you more than one fork.’

They ended up going to a homey little hole in the wall place that Taako had insisted would be amazing. He was right too, and it reminded Angus of the kind of food he’d used to sneak out and get whenever he was tired of the overly complicated and tiny portioned meals he usually had.

After eating they wandered around town and looked at shops, and that was nice too. A little unnerving, because they were so close to the fanciest parts of town that Angus recognized several streets and stores from when he’d go exploring.

The only reason he’d managed to escape was because he’d already taken on a habit of going ‘missing’ for stretches of time. When someone noticed it’d been longer than usual, he’d managed to make it out of the city. It had taken a lot of planning, and he was terrified that was going to be undone now. 

No one seemed to recognize him though. He’d been keeping an ear open for any passing mentions and hadn’t heard anything yet.

When they got back to the hotel that night, Taako had brushed off magic lessons. He said there was no way he was working on the first day. Angus was pretty sure that the whole magic lesson thing was an excuse to invite him along.

It was nice. He didn’t call Taako out on it, because he knew the elf would deny it, but still.

The next two days also went without incident. Day two was spent exploring parks and such at Merle’s behest, although Magnus seemed to enjoy it too. The third, Taako dragged them all to go see a play.

There had been a wanted poster in the theater for him, but he managed to grab it with a mage hand before anyone else saw. He couldn’t help but be paranoid the rest of the day though. It looked like an old one, maybe no one had bothered to take it down. Hopefully they weren’t still putting up posters for him.

The next day they split up. Everyone wanted to do different things, and Angus supposed that was fair. It made his plans a lot less stressful, and he got some magic practice out of it after all.

It was pretty fun, visiting all his old spots. Disguise self let him relax, knowing no one would recognize him.

Angus hadn’t realized how little he had from home. He’d left in a hurry and didn’t take anything to keep people from being suspicious. He was here on vacation though, no one could fault him for buying souvenirs.

He’d grabbed some food from a street vendor he used to frequent when he was first starting to take on detective cases on his way back to the hotel. He made sure to run into an alleyway and drop the disguise self before heading in.

Taako was in their suite when he got there, although he seemed to be the only one back. He glanced up from the book in his lap. It looked like a cookbook, and Angus found himself excited at the idea of Taako cooking meals from here once they went home.

“There you are. I hope you had your fill of leisure for the day because it’s magic time,” Taako said. Angus nodded, putting his bag of souvenirs down on a table before heading into the little sitting area.

“We’re still doing magic lesson?” he asked, and Taako scoffed.

“Of course we are, you remember why you’re even here?” he asked, and Angus supposed that was fair. He knew it was more than that, especially since they went the first three days without any, but he’d let Taako save face.

With that he started showing him the incantations for blink. As they got into higher level spells it took more practice and time to be able to get them right. Taako said he’d get it by the end of the week though, and Angus hoped he could prove him right.

They’d been practicing for about an hour, Taako blinking from chair to chair when the door slammed open.

_ “Guys!” _ Magnus shouted, nearly tripping over Merle as they rushed into the room. Angus fumbled the incantation he was practicing and Taako dropped out of blink halfway between two chairs.

“Holy shit what now?” Taako asked, sounding annoyed.

“Look! We were in town and there were these fliers!” Magnus said, and Angus froze with a cold dread when he held up a simple piece of paper.

It was a missing person notice, just like the one in the theater. A reward of three million gold pieces for the lost prince of Ahtradon, Caleb Valderdish. 

And smack dab in the middle of the poster, was a picture of him.

Taako was staring at the poster, and then looking back at him, and back again, and Angus could see him making the connection in his head.

“I know right?” Merle said, sounding more casual about this than Angus had expected. “We were thinking, the boy genius here is the spitting image of this lost prince. Magic him up some fancy prince clothes and we could totally scam these people for the reward money,” he added.

Which was-

Uh-

“Holy fuck, you two are idiots,” Taako said, Merle and Magnus frowning at that.

“You don’t think it’ll work?” Magnus asked.

“Oh no, I think it’ll work. Won’t it Ango?” Taako said, turning back towards him and he knew. Angus could tell without a doubt that he knew and why had he agreed to come back here this was a terrible idea.

“I uh, I don’t think that would be a very good idea. Tricking people, that is,” he said, and Taako was crossing his arms and staring down at him.

“Yeah, you wouldn’t be down for tricking innocent people, would you?” he asked, and Angus nodded. “Wouldn’t  _ be _ a trick though, would it?” he added.

“If I um, left afterwards… that would be a trick,” he muttered.

“Wait… Angus is this  _ you?” _ Magnus asked, and Taako groaned loudly.

“Of course that’s him! I mean, this explains why you were acting so weird about coming here,” Taako said.

“Holy shit, Angus you’re a prince?” Magnus asked.

Instead of answering, Angus cast invisibility on himself.

“Don’t use what I taught you to get out of this!” Taako snapped, sounding very offended. Angus didn’t response, trying to walk as quietly as possible out of the room. Before he could get more than a few steps though he felt something wash over him and the invisibility was dispelled. Instead of trying to escape again he slumped his shoulders and turned back around.

“Please don’t make me go back sirs! It was so boring,” he pleaded instead.

“You left  _ royalty _ because you were  _ bored?” _ Taako asked. Angus could understand why he didn’t get it, he knew Taako hadn’t grown up with much.

“They wouldn’t let me do anything sir. I didn’t want to be a king, I wanted to be a detective,” he tried to explain.

“How many forks did they make you use?” Magnus asked.

“Like, eight,” Angus said, and he winced.

“Ooh, that’s  _ bad,”  _ he said. Angus wasn’t sure why he measured how stuffy his old life was in terms of how many forks were used, but he wasn’t going to argue.

“Wait, so is Caleb the fake name or is Angus real, what’s goin on there? Isn’t Caleb the dumb nerd boys you got?” Merle asked, which was a fair question.

“Angus is my name now but I used to be Caleb yeah. I uh, I first read the Caleb Cleveland books because he had the same name as me,” he explained. It felt pretty silly admitting that, but it was true.

“So which are we going by now?” Taako asked, and it was a little funny that they were trying to make sure they had the right name when they always messed it up and called him by nicknames. He guessed they wanted to make sure they were being wrong about something accurate.

“Angus is good, I’ve gotten attached to it,” he said, and Taako nodded. “But um, you’re not going to make me go back are you? I still need to help the bureau and you guys,” he added.

“Huh? Nah kid, you don’t gotta go anywhere you don’t wanna,” Taako said, going back over to sit on the couch like none of was a big deal. It took Angus off guard, he expected more push back than that, especially from Taako.

“Really?” he asked, not sure if he believed it yet.

“Yeah, really?” Merle echoed.

“Hmm? Well yeah, I mean if you do go back we’re def collecting that reward money, and you’re taking me with you. I fucking deserve to live in a castle, but if you’re not going you’re not going,” Taako said, picking the cookbook he’d put down for the magic lesson back up again.

“Oh, I- thank you sir,” Angus said, still a bit shocked by that.

“This does explain a lot about you, like your whole super polite thing and your clothes,” Magnus said.

“Is there something wrong with my clothes? They’re a lot more casual than what I used to wear,” Angus asked, glancing down at himself.

“Holy shit Ango, have you ever owned like, a pair of jeans?” Magnus asked, and Angus shook his head.

“Don’t let him convince you to completely lower your standards pumpkin, not owning a pair of jeans is something to be celebrated,” Taako said.

“So we’re  _ not _ scamming them for the money?” Merle asked, sounding disappointed by this development.

“Um, maybe next time sir? I’d like to just enjoy the rest of this vacation this time,” Angus said.

“And if we  _ wait,  _ they might raise the reward even more. Good thinking,” Merle said.

“That wasn’t what I was thinking but um, alright,” Angus said, figuring it was best to not argue.

“Yeah just let us know if you wanna go back and we’ll work something out,” Magnus said, and it was strange, the option was kind of nice.

“Actually…” he started, catching all three of theirs attention. “Now that I think about it, um, it might be fun. Pulling a little trick on them. After all, I’m not the prince anymore, I’m Angus Mcdonald,” he said. It seemed to take them all a moment to get it, but when they did Taako started smiling widely.

“Alright then, magic lesson over, swindling lesson starting now,” he said.

“Wait, so we  _ are _ stealing from them now?” Merle asked.

“Yes, Merle,” Taako said with a sigh.

“Oh hell yeah,” Merle said.

Angus couldn’t help but think this was an absolutely terrible idea. Things weren’t fun unless there was some risk though. That was why he left being a prince in the first place.

And this was going to be terrible and so much fun.

**Author's Note:**

> heeey, so this is probably going to get a second chapter, and by probably i mean definitely. This was a request that I got a little bit too attached to and so now it's gonna be two chapters. whoops. Also i just... really like the name Caleb. it's a good name. 
> 
> As always, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy!


End file.
